**4.1 Wealth ranking of the respondents**

To establish the socio-economic profile of the respondents a wealth ranking approach was used. Wealth ranking was important in this study to determine whether there is any relationship between biogas technology adoption and wealth of the household into wealth ranks using a set of pre-established criteria (Afonja, 1992). Since its introduction in the 1980's, rapid rural appraisal (RRA) wealth ranking has become an increasingly accepted means of assessing relative socio-economic status in the context of applied research projects and development programs (Chambers, 1994). In this study the members of village governments were involved in wealth ranking for their respective villagers. Criteria for wealth ranking was adopted as perceived locally it included aspects of, food security, livestock, dairy cattle and other assets ownership, land and annual incomes (Table 2). Results from wealth ranking (based on communities perception) show that there were no people who were really *well off* in the sample of households but only the so called *slightly well-off*. Out of the 120 respondents 22% were *slightly well-off* while l*ess poor* and *poor* were 55% and 27% respectively (Table 2).


Table 2. Characteristics of each Wealth rank group
